January 9th 2016

Saturday. The second last day of James' holiday. A nice warm, humid day. Sounds like a perfect day to tackle that blasted cupboard, yes?

Ok, conditions may not have been ripe for decluttering but I was insistent. It needed to be done and it was a huge job. You may remember that I have blogged about this before.  Only now it was even worse than that time, so I needed to enlist am all-hands-on-deck approach.

The children were thrilled.



















 Within no time at all the house was a bombsite. Did you know that spreading the contents of a neglected, confined unregulated corner of your home can result in the ENTIRE house being piled high with stuff? And I loathe stuff.


And remember how last time I said I was being ruthless? HA! What a joke! I had kept the vodka and gin which had been sitting in there for around eight years. I had retained a small wall of containers that I was sure would come in handy. I was, in short, decidedly not ruthless.

Stand aside for 2016 - the year of moving out, cutting back and being truly ruthless.





















Harriet caught the de-cluttering bug and after a while I found her being swallowed by the contents of her drawers. The acquisition of a wardrobe with drawers had never been adequately dealt with and, as a result, Harriet was keen to move, sort, rearrange and cull. I may or may not have had something to do with her interest in cleaning up. And that something may or may not have been along the lines of "That mess in your drawers needs to be cleaned up today through any means necessary".

The end result was the proud production of two bags stuffed with clothes she could pass on to her friends. One of the disadvantages of being a head taller than everyone else your age is you are always the hander-downer and never the handed-down rcipient. Although I think Harriet rather enjoys the opportunity to be generous.




































Speaking of being tall, Harriet proudly donned her new sports shoes for me to photograph. I thought they looked rather spiffy.

Teddy was kept entertained by the discovery of the excellent Marcia Williams books - he had read the Robin Hood one previously but this time was enthralled by The Illiad and The Odyssey. In fact it was so entertaining that, as you can see, it literally had him on the edge of his seat. He stayed perched like this for the entire reading.

We ended the day with a full bin and the prospect of an entire week without being able to place anything else in the bin. A genuine 'no rubbish' challenge. In a week when we are planning to purchase the school stationery it may be interesting.



























We also ended the day with this. Pimms. Thanks go to Amelia for introducing this drink to us. Or rather, thanks go to Amelia from the Pimms distillery for introducing us to the refreshing experience of a jug of Pimms in summer after being covered in dust and dirt all day. We had thrown the gin and vodka down the sink. Blergh.



























And it's all worth it! There is barely anything in there now - a sewing machine, the games, a Meccano set and a music box. Clean! Ruthless! On moving day I will be packing up that cupboard and shouting "Huzzah to me and my ruthless January!".